Dwight is up in Fargo to see his mom and drive her to Minneapolis tomorrow. Walked over to Zen Box Izakaya to satisfy my craving for gyoza and tonkotsu ramen. An authentic Japanese Christmas meal would’ve been a bucket of fried chicken from KFC.
Category: Holidays
Family Lefse Recipe
Today, Dwight’s mom couldn’t find her recipe for lefse, a Christmas staple for Norwegian descendants. He forwarded a scan of the recipe she uses from our digital recipe book.
Best With Bacon
Kicked off Thanksgiving dinner with our Holiday go-to: warm Brussels sprouts salad. It’s a lot of hand-chopping, which is more consistent than a food processor. It would be raw vegan without the essential bacon, Parmesan, and sautéed shallots(!).Recipe.
Seeing Red
Filled my backpack with exactly what we need, and no more, for Thanksgiving dinner. For us, a small amount of cranberries goes a long way.
Time to Put Away Ornaments
12th Night: time to put away the ornaments, possibly for the next two years. Covid *may* be sufficiently diminished near the end of this year, making it feasible for us to travel to a Southern Hemisphere summer.
First Walk of 2021
Walked, as we always do on the first morning of the year. The bridge and the decapitated pole are remnants of this former railroad right of way. We’ll wait until next year for the bar lunch we usually include in this first walk.
New Year in Madrid
Decided 5:00 p.m. was late enough to see in the new year, so “went to Spain” (7 hours ahead of Central time) by streaming Madrid TV. Grape Lady squeezed booze out of one of the plastic grapes; love that cork. Once it was 2021 in Spain, made paella for dinner.
White Christmas
Woke up to an appropriately snowy Christmas Eve. With subzero temperatures it was a good day to stay indoors.
Happiness
Cycled over to SiP Coffeebar to pick up a coffee, then sit on a wall overlooking a yard where a sculptor creates. I always chuckle at the Happiness art piece. Ostensibly, this is the “happiest time of the year.” This year we can simply be grateful for what we have.
Unsolicited Gifts
Reviewed our unsolicited holiday gift collection: a “gifting set” from The LEGO Company (wrapping paper, card, stickers, etc.), a face mask from our state representative, and plastic champagne flutes from the Minnesota Orchestra (to be used during their New Year’s Eve broadcast).